Revisiting the bloody Mayberry murders

Was spurned love the real motive?

By Dianne Stallings

dstallings@ruidosonews.com @RuidosoNews on Twitter

Posted:
02/13/2014 07:16:29 PM MST

The Mayberry boardinghouse stood empty for years and was considered haunted. (Courtesy)

The peace and serenity of the small mining town of Bonito City was shattered in the early morning of May 5, 1885, when shots echoed through the valley and the settlement became the backdrop for a bloody massacre.

In 1991, the late Gilbert and Chloe Peters spoke to the Ruidoso News about the multiple murders and their efforts to maintain the graves and single stone marker in the old Angus cemetery. The Reverend John Skinner and Pinkie Skinner, the grandparents of Chloe Peters, were friends of the slain Mayberry family. Their recollections as passed down through the family, as well as various historical sources, created a picture of life before Bonito Dam was built to provide a source of water for the railroad. Any remnants of Bonito City lie beneath the waters of the deep lake.

Nellie Mayberry may have spurned Martin Nelson's advances. (Courtesy)

What began as a mining tent town in the 1870s during the local gold rush, by 1882 was populated with log cabins on both sides of Bonito Canyon. Some of the early families were the Zumwalts, the Skinners and the Bournes. Supplies were hauled in by wagon and mule south from Las Vegas or from the major trading points of White Oaks to the west and Lincoln to the east.

The town boasted a saloon run by Peter Nelson, a general store, a school, a post office, many log and plaster homes, some temporary tent lodgings and a two-story boarding house operated by Mr. and Mrs. W. F. "John" Mayberry.

The couple had three children: Johnny, whose age was listed as 17 and as 19 in different stories; Eddy, who may have been 7 or 13; and Nellie, who most agree was about 14.

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The murders begin

In the early morning of May 5, 1885, a quiet and well-liked laborer named Martin Nelson, spurred by greed, madness or unrequited love, gunned down four members of the Mayberry family and three other bystanders. Over the years, several articles have been written about the murders, but details vary on the sequence of the deaths and the motives attributed to the murderer.

On the night of the murders, only two guests were in the hotel, the 24-year-old Swede named Nelson and a Dr. R. E. Flynn, said to be from Cincinnati, Ohio.

One of the earliest version of the murders was contained in a booklet titled, "Mayberry Murder Mystery of Bonito City," written around 1938 by A. L. Burke, then editor of the Carrizozo Outlook. Burke wrote that his account came directly from John H. Skinner, the only surviving witness to the bloody scene.

Burke speculated that Nelson went berserk, waking about 1 a.m., and heading toward the upstairs bedroom shared by the two Mayberry brothers. He tapped softly and when Johnny opened the door, Nelson shot him with a .38 caliber rifle, then clubbed the bleeding boy when he tried to resist and shot him again.

The late Gilbert and Chloe Peters pose with the collective grave marker of the Bonito City murder victims. (Dianne Stallings — Ruidoso News, 1991)

Nelson's next victim was young Eddie, who was shot once and killed as he sat screaming in bed.

When Dr. Flynn rushed to the boys' defense, he was shot in the head, bludgeoned and his body was thrown on top of the others.

Mayberry was climbing the stairs from his bedroom below when Nelson shot him through the heart. He then turned his gun on Nellie, shooting her in the side and leaving the young girl for dead.

As Mrs. Mayberry, clad in her nightclothes, tried to help her family, she was shot in the chest. She struggled downstairs and outside, leaving a trail of bloody footprints on the steps.

Burke wrote that the occupants of a nearby cabin refused out of fear to open their door to the dying woman. Martin followed her and killed her with one more bullet, then threw her body into an irrigation ditch, according to an account in "Ruidoso Countryside," by Herb Seckler.

Pete Nelson, who was not related to the murderer, ran from his saloon and tried to wrestle the rifle away from the younger man. He was shot and killed. His head was bashed in with the rifle butt.

Leaving the body lying on the street behind him, Nelson next turned his weapon on Herman Beck, who had opened the door of his grocery to find out what was happening. Other versions place Beck's death later in the morning when Nelson retuned to town. In one rendition, Beck was guarding the Mayberry house and was shot in the back by Nelson.

Either way, all agree that Nelson met his end later that morning when daylight broke through the pine trees.

Nelson is killed

Burke wrote that Charlie Berry, Randolph Schultz and Don Campbell were standing in the street taking about the horror that had occurred a few hours earlier when Nelson returned to town from the mountains.

Berry didn't hesitate and fired a shot through Nelson's heart. The killer's rifle discharged harmlessly into the air as he fell to the ground.

A slightly different account appeared in a 1971 article written by Phillip J. Rasch for True West Magazine. Rasch described Flynn as a physician, who owned a drug store in Boston. Without attributing the source of his information, Rasch wrote that because of ill health, Flynn had spent the winter of 1884-85 in Santa Fe, in a boarding house owned by Mrs. E. N. Cone. He accompanied his landlady to open a summer boarding home on the Rio Bonito and stayed to watch the place when she was called back suddenly to Santa Fe.

In Rasch's version, Flynn shared a bedroom in the Mayberry boarding house with Nelson, who came to Bonito City from Nebraska about four years earlier.

The murders began about 3 a.m., when Nelson attempted to rob his roommate. The shot that killed Flynn brought the Mayberry family to the door and Nelson promptly shot the boys and their father.

Mrs. Mayberry, who Rasch wrote was pregnant, was shot twice by Nelson. With her daughter's support, the wounded woman managed to slip downstairs and outside. As the two ran from the hotel, Nelson shot again, fatally hitting the mother and wounding the young girl in the side with the same bullet.

He overtook Nellie, saying, "I might as well send you to hell with the balance of 'em."

Rasch wrote that Nelson spared the young girl's life only after she promised to watch when he was hanged for the crimes. But he didn't turn his rifle away until he had taunted, "Your father, mother and brothers are dead. Wouldn't you rather die and join them in heaven?"

As neighbor Herman Consbruck, who in 1901 became postmaster at Bonito City, cradled the dying Mrs. Mayberry in his arms, she gasped, "Oh, he killed us all," Rasch wrote.

Other stories of Mrs. Mayberry's death scene have her staggering from the hotel alone screaming, "My boys. Martin killed my boys."

As Rasch recounts, Nelson fled to the mountains where he stopped at the Rademacher home and demanded breakfast, promising not to kill his hostess if she fed him. He boasted that he planned to return to town to finish the grisly job he started earlier.

Love the motive

A motive more intense than greed was attributed to Nelson by Chloe Peters, who was a descendant of the Zumwalt and Skinner families.

"My grandmother and grandfather, John and Pinkie Skinner, were friends and neighbors of the Mayberrys," Mrs. Peters said during the 1991 interview. "They were in town when the murders occurred. He preached the funeral and she took care of the girl after the murders until the uncle took Nellie back to Iowa."

As Mrs. Peters recalled the story told by her grandparents, Nelson might not have intended to shoot Nellie when he encountered her with Mrs. Mayberry in the hotel.

Jealousy and spurned affections may have fueled his madness that day.

When Nellie found shelter in the cellar of a nearby home, Nelson followed her and exclaimed, "Oh Babe, I didn't mean to kill you," according to a story written in 1980.

No one ever will know for sure why Nelson began killing people that day, Mrs. Peters said. "He may have just been out shooting," she said.

Mrs. Peters also offered a different version of Nelson's death. As she remembered her grandparents' account of the incident, Herman Beck was responsible for ending Nelson's bloody spree. Beck was guarding the Mayberry house late that morning when he spotted Nelson coming back into town.

"I'm sure my grandparents told me that both men shot at the same time and they both fell dead," she said.

According to Burke, the morning after the shootings, the seven victims were laid out in a row in Pete Nelson's saloon. In deference to the slain, the killer's body was placed in a separate room.

Rev. Skinner sent Robert Bourne and Rich Reeves to find Sheriff John W. Poe, who owned the VV Ranch. But the sheriff wasn't at the ranch or in the county seat of Lincoln, and the men returned instead with his deputy and Thomas Henley, who lived farther down the river.

The Mayberrys, Peter Nelson and Herman Back were buried on the hill outside of Bonito City. Nelson's corpse was deposited in a hole at the bottom of the hill. He was buried head-first to ensure that his spirit would not rise and walk the earth.

Meanwhile, Dr. Flynn's body was embalmed by an undertaker who came down from Santa Fe and then it was shipped back to his home,

Haunted history

For the next 15 years, the Mayberry Hotel stood empty as testimony to the bloodbath. Children and the superstitious considered it haunted. They claimed the bloody bare footprints of Mrs. Mayberry still could be seen and that muffled shots could be heard coming from the empty windows on moonless nights.

When the town was dismantled about 45 years later to make way for construction of a dam and the creation of Bonito Lake reservoir, the remains of the six victims were moved to the cemetery at Angus. A marker about five feet high designates the mass burial site.

Martin Nelson was reburied just outside the graveyard boundaries.

Like the rest of the cemetery, the grave of the victims is well-tended. Mrs. Peters, her husband Gilbert and other volunteers spent many hours to ensure it didn't fall into disrepair.

But the large stone marker itself presents a mystery. The first name carved at the top of the stone is R. F. Oswald. However, his name never is mentioned in any of the stories about the murders. Mrs. Peters said she believed Oswald may be one of the victims from that night, who somehow eluded history writers. Or his body might have been moved from the same hillside as the other six and was included in the collective grave, because he had no relatives in the area.

"I guess we'll never be sure," she said. "There's nobody around anymore who knows."